Titanic discoverer Ballard to speak at museum

Robert Ballard, the famed oceanographer, author and Naval Reserve commander, will be the featured speaker for the Marine Museum's annual fundraiser.

Michael Holtzman Herald News Staff Reporter @MDHoltzman

FALL RIVER — Next month, the Marine Museum at Fall River will serve the last menu aboard the Titanic along with stories from the man who discovered the ship two miles under the ocean nearly 30 years ago.

Robert Ballard, the famed oceanographer, author and Naval Reserve commander, will be the featured speaker for the museum’s annual fundraiser.

It will be held May 2 with a 6 p.m. catered buffet-style dinner of food samples designed by Victorian chef Auguste Escoffier — known as “the king of chefs” — that were served aboard the Titanic on its ill-fated White Star Line cruise out of Belfast, Ireland, on April 10, 1912.

The first-class delicacies served to the passengers will be replicated by students from New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School under the instruction of Jo Anne O’Neill.

Ballard’s featured presentation will follow the buffet and cocktail hour and is being touted as “an evening to remember” by Marine Museum volunteers and staff, said new curator Mary Concannon.

Ballard led the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s American and French team that on Sept. 1, 1985, discovered the Titanic in its final resting place. The following year, the Woods Hole robot submarine Argo positively identified the wreck 12,500 below the surface, 370 miles south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland.

Ballard is returning to the Marine Museum where, in the early 1990s, he came to talk about his discovery, techniques used by researchers and site preservation.

He continues to be a leading voice about stopping disturbances via underwater submersible vessels to what some consider the Titanic’s grave site, Concannon said.

She said Ballard has advocated for years the sanctity and preservation of the site from tourists and others removing remnants of the vessel, which split in two before it sank, and its contents from the mile-long debris field.

Ballard, an author of “Lost Liners,” who has led discoveries of such noted underwater discoveries as the German battleship Bismarck, U.S. World War II aircraft carrier Yorktown and John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 boat, will focus his presentation on the Titanic, which is a highlight of the Marine Museum. The museum has a 28-foot film replica model and other exhibits and artifacts.

At his prior visit years ago, Ballard arranged for a nine-screen exhibit and video presentation showing the Woods Hole discovery of the Titanic, which can be viewed at the museum.

Concannon said the gala fundraising night highlighted by Ballard’s talk will be a time of “fine cuisine, camaraderie and celebration.”

Tickets are $125 per person for members and $150 for non-members, and will be limited to 200 people.

Tickets may be ordered by contacting the Marine Museum at 508-674-3533 at the 70 Water St. site during open hours, Wednesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Plans are in the works to extend hours to Sundays starting in June.